The Arab Spring's Bottom Line

You can have all the democracy in the world, but without addressing economic injustice, reforms will be hollow

By Khaled Diab

An Egyptian woman passes by a car with second-hand clothes for sale, in Cairo. Economic reforms are crucial for the region. Photograph: Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP

The ideals of the Arab have largely been dominated by demands for liberté and égalité. This "Arab awakening" has been portrayed as an epic battle pitting the enlightened forces of democracy and dignity against the dark powers of dictatorship and despotism.

Based on this vision, the revolutionary discourse within the Arab world – and public debate beyond it – has mostly focused on making the political process more open and transparent, as well as applying the rule of law fairly and equally.

While these issues are of critical importance to the future of the region, since they will help ensure that the poor or marginalised are not trampled on by the rich or powerful, the picture is missing a vital element: fraternité.

You can have all the democracy and personal freedoms in the world, but without addressing poverty and economic injustice, reform will be incomplete and hollow, as a number of mature western democracies shaken by recent unrest are learning.

This raises the question of why, given the obvious importance of economic justice and the strong presence of labour movements and unions in the protests, issues of job creation, wealth generation and economic solidarity have been left to fester by the wayside?

In Tunisia, for example, the pace of reform has been incredibly sluggish, with little beyond a cash handout scheme appearing since the revolution. "There hasn't been enough provided or offered," one Tunisian economics professor complained. "The few programmes that came were late or insufficient."

This is doubly ironic when considering that in Egypt and Tunisia trade unions and workers were a vital driving force behind the protests, holding regular strikes and sit-ins. Even the 6 April youth movement, which called for the first protest of the Egyptian revolution on 25 January, was originally set up to express solidarity with textile workers.

One reason is the nature of the popular uprisings themselves. In Tunisia and Egypt, in order to topple the old order, they needed to appeal to all strata of society – young and old, rich and poor, socialist and conservative. To do this they focused on the lowest common denominator: regime change, the creation of a level political playing field and the protection of human rights.

But there has been no consensus about how to proceed on other pressing issues, and the once-united opposition has splintered into political factions. In addition, in Egypt, many of the revolution's leaders, though young, come from educated and relatively privileged middle or upper-middle-class backgrounds, and so few were likely to seriously challenge the country's underlying economic structure, despite its harsh inequalities.

Moreover, the surviving elements of the political elite that have been leading the country in the interim have been working hard to ensure that as much of the old system remains intact as possible. Towards that end, Egypt's supreme council for the armed forces has skewed the post-revolutionary political system, at least in the short term, away from the young and radical and towards more conservative opposition forces.

This is epitomised by the electoral pact between the liberal al-Wafd and the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice parties, which numerous analysts say is likely to emerge as the largest bloc in the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Although the two parties are bitterly divided over questions of secularism versus religion, which threaten their alliance, they have remarkably similar neo-liberal economic agendas.

Another factor might be termed the "death of political ideology". In Arab countries, as in many other parts of the world, neither past socialism nor current neo-liberalism have delivered satisfactory results: one brought a relative equality of poverty while the other reaped a massive inequality of wealth.

In fact, the Egyptian and Tunisian economies have not been doing at all badly in recent years, yet the fruits have only gone to a small minority with the rest of society excluded from the rewards. And with the high price tag attached to the recent domestic upheavals and global economic fragility, fuelled by the debt crises in the United States and Europe, the economic cake is unlikely to grow much but though the demands on it are likely to do so.

One part of the solution is to foster entrepreneurship and innovation. But that alone will not bridge the gaping economic chasm. Egypt and Tunisia need to build (and in some cases rebuild) their welfare and solidarity infrastructures.

In Egypt, for example, the interim government has taken some steps in the right direction. The budget for the fiscal year that started in July sets a new government sector minimum wage at LE 700 (£72) per month, which though modest and insufficient will nonetheless boost the incomes of several million people.

In order to finance such measures, the government is depending partly on foreign donors but also on the gradual introduction of progressive taxation, as well as indirect taxes. In fact, in a country where tax evasion has long been a problem, Egyptian tax revenues have actually risen by 16% – perhaps a sign of a greater sense of ownership of the political process and solidarity.

Still, the tax burden on the wealthier strata of society remains minuscule in comparison with the egalitarian social democracies of northern Europe and, if the Arab democratic spring is not to turn into a winter of economic discontent, then the haves need to do more to empower the have-nots.

-This commentary was published in The Guardian on 12/08/2011  
- Khaled Diab is a Brussels-based journalist

Oddly, Ahmadinejad May Be The Best Man For Washington

By Dariush Zahedi

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, seems to have emerged triumphant from his power struggle with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While that might sound like good news for the United States, it isn’t. Ahmadinejad is more open to improving relations with Washington than many might think. It is the supreme leader and Iran’s unelected leadership who want to ensure that relations remain hostile.

There is no love lost between Ahmadinejad and the U.S. The president’s frequent jabs at the “Great Satan,” like his predictions of the imminent downfall of the “American empire,” are unlikely to leave American policymakers nostalgic once he leaves office. But Ahmadinejad’s positions often diverge from the deep-rooted, intense anti-Americanism of the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment.

The second non-cleric to become president of Iran, Ahmadinejad has gradually moved away from his extremist views, adopting progressive positions on many issues and in his selection of individuals to serve in key administrative posts. For example, it was his envoy, the National Security Agency chief Saeed Jalili, who negotiated an agreement on uranium exchange in 2009 with the U.S. and the other members of the “5 + 1 group” (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany), only to have it vetoed by Khamenei.

Consider also Ahmadinejad’s closest adviser and chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. No fan of the clerical regime, Mashaei is a self-professed Iranian nationalist rather than an Islamic revolutionist. He has favored more social and cultural freedom in Iran, and has repeatedly charged that Iran’s clerical establishment has too much power. This amounts to treason in Iran. But the most controversial of Mashaei ’s views is his declared intention to restore relations with Washington.

Recognizing that a broad cross-section of Iranians desire improved relations with America, Mashaei has on several occasions expressed respect and admiration for the “great people” and “civilization” of the United States. Rejecting criticism from hard-line opponents, Mashaei has reaffirmed his belief that Iranians are friends of all peoples in the world, even Israelis. Also, and doubtless with Ahmadinejad blessing, he has attempted to convince Iranian expatriates to return and live in Iran (along with their considerable savings).

But Khamenei and his supporters among the Iranian autocracy – traditional conservatives, leaders of the Revolutionary Guards, and most Basijis, the volunteer militia estimated to number 3 million – reject Mashaei ’s views outright. As with the nuclear agreement, the supreme leader has proved an implacable opponent of rapprochement, rejecting any policy proposal that promises to resolve fundamental disagreements with the U.S.

Khamenei’s rationale is simple. He calculates that the foundation on which his power rests will crumble if relations with the U.S. are restored. Enmity toward the world’s superpower perpetuates a siege mentality domestically, while projecting to audiences abroad an image of Iran as the brave champion of Muslim pride and anti-imperialism. In this way the supreme leader promotes acceptance of the coercive tactics required to maintain his monopoly on power, while encouraging the Arab and Muslim masses, and even Western anti-imperialist intellectuals, in their preoccupation with “the enemy.”

Hostility toward America allows the Islamic Republic to blame its problems on American policies. For example, the Iranian leadership will cite economic sanctions as the root cause of Iran’s economic problems. Moreover, the image of the U.S. as the new “evil empire” casts suspicion on Iranian expatriates, the most significant link between the U.S. and Iran. The supreme leader prefers that they stay in California, because expatriate money and ideas would surely embolden his political opponents, strengthen Iran’s independent middle class, and generally empower Iranian society at the expense of the state. For Khamenei, an isolated Iran remains a paradise for clerics. That is why he feels he must neutralize his president.

Ahmadinejad and Mashaei understand the benefit promoting better relations with the U.S. Like former Presidents Muhammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad and Mashaei were regaining popularity simply by giving voice to the idea of reconciliation. However, that was before internal tensions erupted. Should the Islamic regime crumble, they may rank as among the political survivors, so long as they symbolize change that the public endorses.

Ahmadinejad and Mashaei are Iran’s potential Mikhail Gorbachevs. But if Khamenei succeeds in perpetuating the anti-American revolution he inherited from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that outcome will be less certain. In a few years’ time we may miss Ahmadinejad as we now miss Khatami.

-This commentary was published in The Daily Star on 12/08/2011
-Dariush Zahedi teaches in the political science department at the University of California, Berkeley. Ali Ezzatyar is an American lawyer and journalist based in Paris

Israeli Intransigence Ignores History

By Jonathan Power

There are questions that even today the historians don’t seem moved to investigate. Two important ones come to mind: Why was it that Pharaonic Egypt never went to war for hundreds of years until Ramses II became pharaoh in 1303 AD? Isn’t it a fact that Jews in Europe were unmolested for most of the first millennium after the death of Jesus?

The Egyptian question is a bit of an idle curiosity since an answer probably won’t affect our behaviour today, although it should. Still, it is nice to know that we, human beings, aren’t constituted to make war and that we do not have to live like we did over hundreds of years in Europe - going to war at the drop of a hat and making the continent the most war-like place on earth.

To learn more about the persecution of the Jews is highly relevant to today’s Palestinian-Israeli struggle for the ancient land of Palestine. The siege mentality that modern Israel exhibits could do with being leavened with a bit of honest history. Jewish history over 2,000 years hasn’t always been pogroms.

For most of the time, over two millennia, the Jews in Europe got on with life and were not often persecuted. Indeed, in the first millennium, they seemed to have been barely noticed. They may have not been always liked, but they were accepted. Only in 19th century Russia were the pogroms killing thousands, rather than hundreds as before.

Even when, at the beginning of the second millennium, tolerance of the Jews did gradually give way to demonising them in some quarters, by and large Jews lived on good terms with their Christian neighbours. Then, as now, they were considered to be materially successful and culturally brilliant.

In the 1090s, the influential Christian scholar, St. Anselm, broke from St. Augustine’s long-held opinion that those who had crucified Christ had not known he was the son of God. Whether this had a profound influence on ordinary opinion can only be guessed, but we do know that in the late 11th and early 12th century, outrages were perpetuated against Jews, albeit infrequently.

During the preparations for the crusade of 1096, Jews were massacred in significant numbers. Yet, at the same time, there were strong countercurrents. Pope Alexander III, in the decrees of the Third Lateran Council in 1179 wrote that Jews were not to be deprived of land, money or goods, and their religious ceremonies should not be interrupted with sticks and stones.

Over the next 750 years, the Jews, for the most part, prospered. Occasionally there were mass killings. We should also recall what murderous centuries these were in Europe: wars between kings, dukedoms and knights’ fiefdoms, not to mention the almost continuous Protestant-Catholic wars. Compared to these, the anti-Jewish pogroms were relatively minor affairs.

In 1791, Catherine the Great of Russia created the Pale of Settlement, territory where permanent Jewish settlement was allowed. Its population was about five million, compromising around 40 per cent of the world’s Jewish population. However, Jews in the Pale - which covered about 20 per cent of Russia’s European territory - were still a minority, perhaps 14 per cent of the population. The host community resented this influx of Jews and there were many pogroms and anti-Jewish riots. In the big pogroms of 1891 and 1903, thousands were murdered.

Over two million fled, mainly to the US, but only rarely did they show themselves much interested in the Zionist cause. They were happy where they were, and found themselves side by side with other peoples who had also been badly persecuted in Europe. They discovered they weren’t the only ones and this helped give them a sense of perspective that lasted until the holocaust.

We should not be surprised, then, that although Zionism was a Western construct, its greatest appeal was to the remaining East European Jews. West European Jews had found a modus vivendi and their chief concern was not physical oppression. It was the loss of identity through assimilation. What the western Jews cared for was the spiritual redemption of their people. Hence, when Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, preached his cause at the end of the 20th century, he met with much opposition. However, by the later standards of Zionist leaders, Herzl was a moderate man. His urge for a Jewish state was a question of finding a suitable piece of land. It could be in Africa or South America. It did not have to be in Palestine.

Israelis today need to reflect on all this. Apart from Hitler’s holocaust - a one-off event - their forefathers were not singularly persecuted when compared to what else was going on at the time. And until the end of World War II, popular Jewish opinion, either inside or outside the Middle East, did not countenance a takeover of Palestine.

This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 12/08/2011

Iraq Seeks To Shore Up Security In A Dangerous Environment

Many feel US forces may be needed to stabilise a highly volatile situation — both inside the country and in the neighbourhood

By Patrick Seale

Iraq was once a proud and powerful Arab country.  With its vast oil resources, its great rivers, and its educated middle class, it was in many ways an Arab success story — before things started to go wrong.  The last 30 years have been terrible.

Among the gruesome landmarks were first, the eight-year-long life-and-death struggle with the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1980-88, which Iraq managed to survive, but only with great loss of life and material destruction; second, the Gulf War of 1991, when it was forcibly expelled from Kuwait by America and its allies after Saddam Hussain was rash enough to invade his neighbour; third, the 13 years of punitive international sanctions which followed the Kuwait war and which are said to have cost the lives of half a million Iraqi children; and fourth, America’s devastating invasion of 2003 and its long occupation of the country, which is due, at least in principle, to end on December 31 this year.

In its slow and painful recovery from these decades of devastation, Iraq’s dilemma today is that it may still need help from the United States, the power which, more than any other, has destroyed it. This is the background to the current discussions between Baghdad and Washington about a possible extension of America’s military presence in Iraq beyond 2011 — the date set by the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) for a final US evacuation.

There are still some 46,000 American soldiers in Iraq — down from 140,000 a couple of years ago.  President Barack Obama has pledged to bring them home — but the Americans are as divided as the Iraqis on the issue. In the US, Democrats have long opposed the war. The Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid declared last month that ‘now is the time for our military mission to come to a close.’ Republicans, in contrast, want America to remain in Iraq — to defend its interests and confront Iran. Senator John McCain, for example, has argued that there is a ‘compelling case’ for the US to keep at least 13,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely. Opinion is divided in Iraq also. The Kurds desperately want the Americans to stay as guarantors of their fragile semi-independence from Baghdad, while hardline Shiite factions, notably the Sadrists, who are close to Iran, want to get rid of the Americans altogether, and the sooner the better. In between these two poles are a number of more moderate parties, both Shiite and Sunni, who have no great love for the Americans, and would rather be free of them, but recognise that they may still be needed to stabilise a highly volatile situation — both inside the country and in the surrounding neighbourhood.

Iraq’s new-found ‘democracy’, dominated by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, is characterised by a great number of parties and splinter groups, all jostling for advantage. This produces a lot of heated talk but not much action — to the extent that a leading Iraqi (consulted for this article) described the Iraqi political scene as resembling that of the French Fourth Republic.

There is a vast amount of rebuilding to be done in Iraq. The 2003 war overthrew Saddam Hussain’s brutal regime, but the horrors which followed have been at least as bad as — and probably a good deal worse than — anything he was guilty of.

n The US invasion triggered a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites which killed tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions inside the country and sent millions more fleeing as refugees abroad (including much of the Christian community.).

n It destroyed Iraq as a unitary state by encouraging the emergence of a Kurdish statelet, now linked awkwardly to the rest of the country in a loose federation.

n It smashed Iraq’s infrastructure to the extent that, in this summer’s heat, with temperatures climbing to over 50 degrees Celsius, the country suffers from crippling power cuts. On average in the south, electricity is on for one hour and off for four. The population is clamouring for better services.

Under Saddam, Iraq was ruled by the Sunni minority, accounting for no more than 20 per cent of the population. The war put the Shiite majority in power. Since the 2008 elections, the country has been governed by a coalition of Shiite groups together with secularists and Kurds, but with Al Maliki’s Shiite bloc very much in control. Al Maliki personally controls the defence and security apparatus.

Al Maliki is close to Iran but he is an Iraqi nationalist, not an Iranian puppet. Whereas he is negotiating to extend the US military presence into 2012, Iran would, on the contrary, like to force the US out of Iraq under duress. Suffering from US sanctions, and under constant threat of attack by Israel, Iran is hitting back against the US by encouraging its Iraqi supporters to attack American troops: 14 were killed in June and another five in July. Baghdad’s Green Zone, home to the American and other embassies, has suffered a growing number of rocket attacks.  The internal security situation remains very dangerous.

Iraqis also feel, with some justice, that they are living in a hostile environment. Syria next door is in the throes of a vast popular revolution, savagely repressed by the regime, a highly dangerous situation which could well spill into Iraq. Iraq is also on very poor, even hostile, terms with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s Sunni heavyweight, which has been alarmed and angered by the rise of Shiite power in both Iraq and Iran. The Saudis and some of their Gulf neighbours fear the extension of Shiite influence across the Arab world. In Bahrain, for example, Saudi Arabia recently helped quell a revolt by the Shiite community – a community which has traditionally been close to Iraq. This, too, has damaged Saudi-Iraqi relations.

Iraq is also quarrelling with Kuwait over the latter’s plan to build a megaport on the island of Bubiyan, which could have an impact on the Shatt Al Arab waterway, Iraq’s sole outlet to the sea. Iraq is sending a commission of experts to Kuwait to assess the project. Some Iraqi parliamentarians have also accused Kuwait of stealing Iraqi oil by slant drilling into Iraqi territory. These are highly sensitive issues. They are precisely the ones Saddam Hussain invoked for invading Kuwait in 1990.

For all these reasons, Iraq feels that it needs to beef up its armed services, rebuild its air force and navy, as well as its ground troops, so as to be able to protect its borders and its oil platforms, as well as stabilise the situation in cities like Kirkuk and Mosul where ethnic and sectarian tensions remain high.

Al things considered, it does not look as if America’s involvement with Iraq — which has proved catastrophic for both countries – will be ended soon.

-This commentary was published in The GULF NEWS on 12/08/2011
-Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs

Israeli Protests Fight Injustice - As Long As It's Convenient

Israelis are protesting for economic reform throughout the country. But in demanding social justice the Israeli street is ignoring ongoing mistreatment in the occupied territories.

By Joseph Dana

Last weekend, more than 300,000 Israelis protested for economic reform throughout the country. In Tel Aviv, the epicentre of the housing protests, 250,000 Israelis marched to the defence ministry chanting the slogan "the people want social justice". The demonstrations were some of the largest in Israel's history and have pumped new life into the corpse of Israel's leftist political movement.

But the one issue glaringly missing from these demonstrations demanding "social justice" is the most urgent social justice issue in the region: the equality of everyone under Israeli rule, including Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The demonstrations sweeping Israel started on July 14 as a group of young Israelis set up a number of tents on Rothschild Boulevard, one of the more affluent streets in Tel Aviv. The chief aim was rent relief. Protesters held signs complaining about rents for two-bedroom apartments in the centre of Tel Aviv, which average about 3,700 Israeli shekels (Dh3,840) per month while the average salary in Israel is 6,000 shekels.

Within days, thousands of Tel Aviv residents joined the protests, erecting a tent city that stretched over one kilometre. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to dismiss "radical leftists and anarchists" who displayed "disloyalty to the state and its army" apparently did not work.

The tent protests tap into the general exhaustion felt by many in Israel's middle class. Despite a strong economy that was largely shielded from the economic crisis (Israel's GDP grew a whopping 4.7 per cent last year), neoliberal policies and high taxes for security and the maintenance of Israel's 44-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has forced an extremely high cost of living. Everything from housing costs to the price of cottage cheese is comparable to London or New York, while salaries tend to be 50 per cent lower than in those cities.

On top of the high cost of living inside the 1967 borders, the Israeli middle class has seen successive Israeli governments devote resources to settlements in the occupied West Bank rather than to Israeli urban centres.

Despite the connection between economic hardship and the settlements, Israeli protesters have been careful not to connect their struggle with Palestinian solidarity or an end to occupation.

This is partly tactical. In the climate of radical politics, Israeli public opinion meets any discussion of the occupation with a negative reaction. Protest organisers say economic reform would not receive the 87 per cent public approval rating that it enjoys if the early demonstrations had been overtly anti-occupation. However, after a month of increasing protests, questions about "social justice" can hardly ignore the occupation or unequal conditions for non-Jews.

The timing will also press the issue of occupation. The army plans to call up reservists ahead of the United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood in September. The core of the tent protest movement is young men and woman with reserve duty obligations.

Come September, will reservist protesters put their demands on hold, don olive-green uniforms and subdue Palestinians in the West Bank, who are struggling for their own social justice? If there was any widespread challenge to Israel's paramount institution, the military, the occupation would suffer.

In an attempt to capitalise on the media attention, settlers from the West Bank are joining tent protests. Under banners declaring that the solution to the housing crisis is settlement of the West Bank, dozens of radical settlers have been shouting hate-filled slogans against African refugees, Arabs and homosexuals during protests. And organisers have defended the rights of settlers to protest, arguing that Palestinian solidarity activists are also present at the demonstrations.

Organisers are desperate to show that the demonstrations include all Israelis. As the protests have gained momentum, Arab-Israelis, among the most disenfranchised people in the country, have slowly joined. But displays of Zionist politics have been overwhelming.

It has become increasingly clear that Mr Netanyahu will have a difficult time weathering protests - and may lose his job.

But fundamental questions remain. How can a protest in Israel, borrowing the revolutionary energy of the Arab Spring, ignore Israel's military control of the Palestinians? Israel may be seeing a challenge to its security-led ideology, or this could be a "social justice" protest in name only, which will continue to ignore the occupation. The only way to know is if the protests continue and develop a coherent underlying strategy.

If these protests, some of the largest in Israel's history, dissolve without addressing Israel's fundamental crisis, it will be difficult to convince anyone that the occupation will end without worldwide external pressure.

-This commentary was in The National on 12/08/2011
-Joseph Dana is a journalist and human rights advocate based in Jerusalem

Syria: The Cost Of Assad’s Borrowed Time

By Amir Taheri

Talk about Syria to officials in Washington, London or Moscow and you are likely to hear predictions of an even bigger bloodbath before the Assad regime is toppled.

One Obama administration official tells me that President Bashar al-Assad is “living on borrowed time.” Presumably, the borrowing of time has been made at the cost of daily massacres across Syria.

“We give Assad between three months and two years, “ the American official tells me. “ However, stronger international action could shorten that period and reduce the cost in human lives.”

The question is: why doesn’t the international community take that “ stronger action” that Washington says is necessary?

The Syrian regime has already killed more people than its Libyan counterpart had done when the United Nations decided to sanction military intervention against Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

When the United Nations moved on Libya, Gaddafi had arrested a few dozen opponents. His fellow despot in Syria has jailed some 10,000 people, with many others classified as "missing."

And the crisis in Syria is more of a threat to regional peace than the conflict that started in Libya last spring.

Syrian refugees are pouring into Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Cyprus, affecting the security of those countries. Inside Syria, an estimated 150,000 people have been driven out of their homes while scores of Kurdish villages, with an estimated population of half a million, are sealed off by security forces.

Assad has moved army units to the edge of the Turkish border in the disputed area known as Iskenderun, raising the risk of border clashes. With Iran also getting involved in support of Assad, both directly and through its Hezbollah agents in Lebanon, the crisis is assuming an even larger regional dimension.

So, why hasn’t the Security Council moved beyond a presidential statement condemning the massacres but promising no concrete action to stop them?

The answer I get from American and other Western officials is that Russia and China would veto any resolution committing the international community to action against the Assad regime. .

This amounts to what one might call the pre-emptive veto -- we veto our own action on Syria for fear of being vetoed by Russia and/or China. By not raising the issue, Western democracies assume the responsibility for inaction. It's odd logic and bad diplomacy.

First, we can't know whether Russia or China would veto. Serious diplomacy can't be built on mere guesses about intentions. Last week, I contacted the Russians with a question about the veto threat.

“ We cannot veto a text that has not even been written,” a senior Russian official, retorted. “ We remain open to whatever action that would help end the bloodshed in Syria.”

He then referred me to a strong statement by President Dmirty Medvedev in which the Russian leader predicts “ a sad fate” for the Syrian despot.

In other words, we don’t know for sure that Moscow would use its veto to help Assad continue killing the Syrian people.

In any case, the Security Council was never meant as merely a voting chamber: Its chief function is as the highest forum for raising and debating issues affecting regional and international peace.

Throughout much of the Cold War, Western democracies used the council to focus world attention on human rights and the Soviet regime's oppression of nations in central and Eastern Europe.

Yes, the USSR used its veto 123 times, an all-time record. But each veto underlined Moscow's failure to secure a majority, leaving it exposed and isolated.

Western democracies should take the Syria issue to the Security Council by offering a draft resolution in support of the Syrian people's struggle for freedom. Once the draft is submitted and debated, Russia and China would have to choose to side with the Syrian people or back an obnoxious and increasingly isolated regime.

It's not certain that Russia (and even less China) would use a veto to prop up Assad. But even if they did so, they couldn't save a moribund regime.

Russia knows that by siding with Assad it would be siding with the Arab world's losers. A veto on Syria could stir anti-Russian feelings from Marrakech to Muscat. Similar considerations persuaded Russia and China to abstain in the vote over Libya.

China would be even more reluctant to veto. To please its Pakistani ally, in 1972 China vetoed the admission of Bangladesh as a UN member. Beijing is still living with the consequences of that veto, one of only seven it has ever cast, as Bangladesh remembers that hostile act.

Another excuse used to justify lack of concrete action to stop Assad’s killing machine was the supposed “ Arab indifference”. Anyone skimming through the Arab media would immediately know that there is no indifference. Arab opinion in all its shades is solidly behind the Syrian people and adamantly opposed to the continuation of the Assad regime in any firm or shape. Apart from Hezbollah, an organ of the Iranian government in Lebanon, I know of no other Arab group that would justify the daily killings in Syria. The latest statement by the Gulf Cooperation Council nations is yet another indication that Arab opinion is not indifferent to the tragedy in Syria. In fact, only three of the 22 member states of the Arab League continue to maintain full ambassadorial relations with the Assad regime.

Even the Islamic Republic in Iran is beginning to have doubts about further investing in Assad’s shaky regime. For the first time, the official news agency IRNA is reporting moves by Turkey and other countries to stop the carnage in Syria along with statements critical of the Syrian regime.

The US and its allies lost a great deal of time over the illusory prospect of a reformist group emerging from within the Assad regime. Obama administration officials tell me that that illusion is now gone.

“The Assad regime cannot be reformed,” an Obama administration official tells me. “It must be replaced with a regime chosen by the Syrian people.”

Well, if that is the case, it is urgent to ensure UN support for a mix of diplomatic, economic and military action to bring change to Syria.

Western democracies should take the lead and call on the Security Council to protect the Syrian people against the Assad killing machine. Such la move would be a moral booster for Syrian freedom fighters and yet another reminder to the Assads that their days are numbered.

-This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 12/08/2011
-Amir Taheri was born in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. He was Executive Editor-in-Chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran (1972-79). In 1980-84, he was Middle East Editor for the Sunday Times. In 1984-92, he served as member of the Executive Board of the International Press Institute (IPI)

Cairo's Revolutionaries Change Tactics

The hard-core activists who led the protests that ousted Hosni Mubarak are looking for other ways to make an impact. But with elections looming, are they losing the plot?

By Max Strasser in Cairo

Are the revolutionaries lost their way?

For Egyptian activists, Tahrir Square these days feels more like an area under military occupation than the epicenter of a revolution. Armored personnel carriers, topped with machine gunners, guard the entrances. The massive vans used to transport riot police and prisoners line the surrounding streets. High-ranking police officers in crisp white uniforms and aviator sunglasses keep watch over the traffic as helmeted riot police holding shields and batons surround the patch of grass in the square's center. Any sign of the sit-in that was in place for more than three weeks before it was violently dispersed on Aug. 1 has vanished. Even the street vendors who for the last six months have been selling Egyptian flags and commemorative revolution T-shirts have disappeared.

The message from the ruling military junta is clear: That phase of the revolution is over.

For the most hard-core Egyptian activists, those who as much as any other can claim to be in the vanguard of the revolution that began on Jan. 25, losing the symbolic heart of their revolution is unacceptable. Some are vowing to break the military's hold on the square, even if that means being violently chased out.

But for many, losing Tahrir, while a setback, may not be the worst thing that could happen to the revolution. There seems to be a growing consensus among Egypt's revolutionaries that the road to change will be neither swift nor simple. And it will have to pass outside of Tahrir.

"The revolution has been isolated from the people's demands," says Abdallah Helmy, a 34-year-old pharmacist who is the secretary-general of the Revolutionary Youth Union, a decentralized umbrella organization that includes more than 25 other groups from across the political spectrum. "That's why two months ago we decided to stop protesting. So we can listen to the people."

Many activists are looking to push for change not just through demonstrations and sit-ins, but also by building civic education programs, providing legal counsel to nascent labor unions and those arrested by the military, and establishing a democratic political culture that wasn't allowed under President Hosni Mubarak. Although parliamentary elections are looming, many think that for now, transforming the political culture needs to be a priority.

Activists have faced a series of setbacks in recent weeks, as public opinion has largely turned against protesters, driven in part by smears from the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) accusing them of being foreign-backed provocateurs. When military police forcibly dispersed the sit-in on Aug. 1, shop owners from the neighborhood around Tahrir Square joined in, cheering and helping to tear down tents. Nine days earlier, on July 23, residents of the Abbasseya neighborhood attacked a march heading to the SCAF's headquarters. The clashes left hundreds injured and put Mohamed Mohsen, a 23-year-old Aswan native, in a coma, from which he died last week.

None of which is to say that the three-week sit-in was a total failure. It began with a massive rally on July 8 and was followed by a week of reforms that were ostensibly in response to the protests, without directly addressing the main demands (among them reparations for families of those killed in the revolution). The prime minister reshuffled his cabinet, promised to reshuffle provincial governors, and ordered a massive round of layoffs at the reviled Interior Ministry, which was responsible for torture and internal surveillance under Mubarak.

But over the next two weeks, the sit-in was either ignored or resented by much of the rest of Cairo. Even some of the pro-change activists believed that it was a futile endeavor. "The activists are idiots. The whole thing is ridiculous," one activist told me of those who insist on keeping the protest movement focused on Tahrir Square.

Even those who kept the sit-in going questioned its efficacy after a certain point, though in less harsh language. "If you use this tool for a long period, every day, the people will start to hate you. It becomes a joke," says Mohamed Adel, a 23-year-old member of the political office of the well-organized and well-known April 6 Youth Movement. Protests in the square should be just one tactic among many, say numerous activists.

Mahmoud Salem, a hulking, amicable activist who can often be seen at demonstrations sporting a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, is looking to a distinctly political model. He hopes to help establish interest lobbies.

"The label of the revolution has been hurt," says Salem, a self-declared pro-market liberal who is unaffiliated with any movement or party but enjoys influence as a blogger and Twitter user under the moniker Sandmonkey. "It's much easier to talk about the issues. People agree with the issues. If you turn it into causes and each group works with a cause and promotes it in their own way, it can get traction."

Some groups are taking things in that direction, zeroing in on single issues.

Since Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, more than 10,000 Egyptians, both protesters and others, have been subject to military trials and in some cases torture at the military's hands, according to local and international human rights organizations. The continuation of extrajudicial trials, a favorite tactic of the Mubarak regime, is seen as a slap in the face to the revolution. One very vocal, loosely organized group that calls itself No Military Trials for Civilians (NMTC) has been taking this issue head-on, bringing media attention to the cases of detainees, putting them in touch with human rights lawyers, and, at times, staging demonstrations against military trials.

No Military Trials for Civilians hasn't stopped the practice completely, but it has made some headway. The group has successfully brought the issue to the forefront of discussion, not just among protesters but also on influential satellite TV stations like ONTV and Dream TV. In some cases, the legal counsel NMTC facilitated has helped detainees get commuted sentences. And the military's violent attack on the sit-in on Aug. 1 may have been a victory of sorts.

"When the 113 people got arrested on Aug. 1, the first of Ramadan, they were passed on to civilian court. That for us was a huge gain," Noor Ayman Nour, a member of the group, told me. (It may not sound like a great success, but the bar is low in SCAF's Egypt.)

Other groups also hope to take on lobbying roles, even if those will be centered less on specific issues. The April 6 Youth Movement, which began as a display of solidarity with striking workers in the Nile Delta in 2008, is one of Egypt's best-organized activist organizations. April 6 enjoys widespread name recognition (enough that the SCAF has singled the group out for defamation), but hopes to increase its membership and influence in Cairo and throughout Egypt, which can then be turned into political capital to pressure future governments on issues of "democracy and social justice," according to Adel.

The widespread perception among analysts is that liberal and leftists groups are inept at old-fashioned organizing, ceding the grassroots to the Islamists. But some groups are working to address this shortcoming.

During Ramadan, April 6 members are distributing packages containing rice, sugar, cooking oil, and other staples in poor areas and villages throughout Cairo and the Nile Delta. (In Egypt, where around 40 percent of the population lives below the international poverty line, these kinds of charity packages are important for many families' celebrations of the holy month.) They have already passed out more than 2,000 packages and plan to distribute more.

"It's about saying to people, 'We are here.' You don't have to join the movement and we don't need you to follow us, but we want you to know who we are," says Adel, who hails from a village in the Nile Delta. April 6 intends to use this to build a base of support that can pressure future governments into fair elections, respect for human rights, and support for economic justice issues like a living minimum wage.

Helmy, of the Revolutionary Youth Union umbrella group, is also looking to establish a "pressure group" throughout Egypt. The Union is conducting listening tours throughout Egypt to collect complaints -- about sanitation, education, water pollution -- and bring them to the attention of the Cairo revolutionaries and, they hope, the government. "We go to communities to highlight their demands and try to link them to the national anti-corruption movement," Helmy says.

The Union is also working on what it believes is a crucial issue: civic education. Its activists are creating cartoons about issues like elections and the Constitution and distributing them throughout the country. Helmy has also been pushing in meetings with the military to include civic-education programming on state television. And, he says, the military has listened.

A handful of other groups are doing work throughout Egypt. The National Front for Justice and Democracy, a left-leaning group headed by the brothers Mohamed and Amr Waked, respectively an anthropology Ph.D. candidate and a famous actor, is bringing resources from Cairo to assist the formation of NGOs and independent labor unions throughout the country. Popular committees, formed for neighborhood protection during the 18-day uprising last winter, are working to provide services to neighborhoods around the country long neglected by the corrupt, Mubarak-era municipal governments. A group of prominent Twitter users, including Salem, have launched an initiative collecting more than $220,000 in donations for a development project in a large Cairo slum.

Egypt is expecting its first fair and free parliamentary elections in November, with a presidential election to be held shortly after. Many expect that the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, which has been developing a grassroots support network since the 1920s, is poised for a major victory, though the group insists that it will contest fewer than 40 percent of seats. Dozens of new political parties have sprouted since Mubarak's resignation -- many of them secular groups -- and are trying to organize throughout the country. But with just a few months before elections, they face a steep uphill battle.

Some activist groups could become more involved in partisan politics. April 6, Adel tells me, is considering endorsing candidates. But for many activists who helped ignite the revolution, that is a side concern.

Helmy's group, the Revolutionary Youth Union, is nonpartisan, though he is personally active with a small liberal party. But he still believes elections are only one step in the process of transforming Egypt into a democracy. "You cannot have a real democracy in one shot," he says. "It must be built gradually."

Nour, of No Military Trials for Civilians, agrees. Although he used to consider himself more of a political activist (his father was a presidential candidate who came in a distant second place in 2005), he believes that even after Mubarak's ouster his work as a human rights activist is more important.

"If you don't have the very basics, you cannot rebuild Egypt politically. We are working on providing people with their most basic rights so that in the long term they can start enjoying other, more luxurious rights," he told me, a jagged, forked scar still visible on his forehead from a clash with security forces in June. "You cannot have stability with weak foundations."

-This commentary was published in The Foreign Policy on 10/08/2011
-Max Strasser is a writer and editor based in Cairo